Law and Spiritual Life

Sermon at Gig Harbor Adventist Fellowship, Sabbath, January 22, 2011.

Text: Psalm 1

Beautiful Bones


The most beautiful shape in the world is the female body. When we think of feminine beauty, we think of graceful curves and soft, warm touch. We do not think about the skeleton that lies beneath the skin. However, the reality is that human beauty is utterly dependent on a a sturdy, functioning skeleton.

When I was a Bible worker in New York, I gave Bible studies to a girl named Linda. She, her mom and her sister Gloria lived in a dingy apartment in Brooklyn. Linda was tall and thin and pretty. But Gloria had the magic personality. She was funny, cheerful, bright. She was fun to talk to. But in contrast to Linda, Gloria was not fun to look at. In fact, it hurt to look at her. She was just over four feet tall. She got around the apartment on crutches. She used a wheel chair for excursions away from the apartment. Her shoulders were terribly slumped. Her hands were twisted and gnarled. Gloria didn’t come from a family of short people. Her sister Linda was five feet six or seven. Gloria was so short because her skeleton was inadequate.

They told me it was called brittle bone disease. Medical people tell it's called Osteogenesis imperfecta. In this syndrome, the bones don’t form properly. They’re not strong enough to do their job. They are always breaking from just the normal activi. When Gloria was born she looked like a normal baby. But as she grew her deformity became more and more obvious. By the time I met her, when she was in her twenties, her body was peculiarly misshapen. Her life expectancy was short.

Gloria's defect highlights the obvious truth: human beauty, even the soft, gentle grace of the female form is absolutely dependent on strong, rigid bones, a sturdy skeleton.

In spiritual life law plays the role of bones and the skeleton. Without an appreciation for the order and structure of law we will be ineffective in our life with God.

What do I mean by “law?'

I mean the moral order, the notion that there are some things that are right to do and some things that ought not be done. Regardless of how I feel.

I mean practicing doing right. Lawful living includes the discipline of doing right, the habits of prayer, meditation, Bible reading, going to church, giving money, speaking courteously, telling the truth.

Healthy spiritual life does not exist apart from a belief in the moral order and a commitment to the practice of spiritual habits.



In his sermon on the mount Jesus outlined the wisdom of the kingdom of heaven. He warned us against anger, lust and greed. He challenged us to imitate our heavenly Father in mercy. He urged us not to worry and to practice the golden rule.

Then Jesus comes to the punch line, the grand climax of the sermon. It is the story of the two builders. One builds on sand, the other on rock. When a flood comes, one house stands, the other collapses.

The key to avoiding disaster, Jesus says, is putting into practice what he says. It's not enough to know what he says, to be aware of it. If we are going to avoid disaster, we have to put it into practice.


That's the way life works. Law is not some arbitrary overlay on life. It is a description of how life works.

If I want to do a hundred pushups, I will have to get up from the keyboard and start doing pushups. Merely reading the app on my Iphone will not bring me any closer to my goal.

The law of increasing my strength is that I have to do something. I have to exercise.

If I want to make music that will charm people and move them, I'm going to have to practice. No matter how much talent I have, unless I practice, I will never make the kind of music I can hear in my head.

If I hope some day to be a National Merit Scholar. I will have to engage in school work before my senior year in high school.

If I want to enjoy an effective spiritual life, I am going to have to put into practice the “laws,” the instruction, that Jesus gave.

No amount of “faith” will substitute for actually doing the practice.




Law and Love

What about love? Can't we just love and forget about law? Isn't Christianity all about relationships. What do we need law for?

Law, in the sense of a morality that is greater than any human authority is a powerful protector of love. It helps to distinguish true love from dangerous and false counterfeits.

The world is heavy with abuse–battered wives, children who are assaulted, harangued, sexually used by their parents or other adults, employees misused by employers, parishioners subjugated by clergy and citizens by tyrants. This abuse happens because of failures to appreciate law. Notice these kinds of evils happen inside relationships. They may be sick relationships, but they are relationships nevertheless. Law—morality, duty, conscience—stands above the relationship and judges it.

Persons with power often attempt to impose on subordinates by claiming the prerogatives of relationship: Lie down, girl; I’m your father. Don’t question me, church member; I am your shepherd. Don’t challenge me, citizen; I am your leader. Tragically victims often comply because they feel obligated by the relationship. Children are especially vulnerable because they are so relationally oriented they don’t have the mental capacity to clearly differentiate between what an authority figure requires and what is truly right.
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The truth is, no matter who you are, if what you want is wrong, it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter if you are Mom or Dad or Pastor or Teacher or President. It’s wrong because the law is greater than any person. Law is capable of giving authoritative judgment about any relationship. “Love” does not make everything all right. “I’m doing this because I love you” does not justify capricious or cruel discipline. Assurances of affection and admiration do not justify sexual violations. Relational connections are not everything. Healthy relationships do not violate boundaries set by law. (Please note, I am not referring to law in the sense of something legislated by human governments. I am referring to law as the deep principles that permeate the universe.)

Love cannot flourish where moral law is violated. We cannot build better families or better civic or ecclesiastical communities by diminishing people’s regard for law.

Law cannot create love. Law cannot create meaningful, intimate relationships. But law builds the fence that protects the garden of love from the assaults of competing lovers, restless hormones, boredom, and the exhaustion that comes from the relentless pace of modern life. Law provides the skeleton of duty and faithfulness that supports the warm beauty of love.


Law and God

Beyond its utility as a guardian of children, vulnerable teenage beauties, long-term marriages and effective government and business operation, the Adventist concept of law can be a tremendous aid for people who struggle with doubt about God.

Some people have an instinctive, deep confidence in God. “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” Their faith is simple and untroubled. But for many, the question, can God be trusted? is intensely problematic. Is God good? Is God fair? What right does God have to give orders? What right does he have to act as judge of all the earth?

One of the major projects of Adventist theology has been to address this question. Historically, it was a major theme in the writings of Ellen White. More recently this has served as a dominant theme in the theology of Graham Maxwell.

Adventists believe that law in its most fundamental form is not an arbitrary imposition of rules by God upon humans, rather law is a description of the habits of God, or in the language of Ellen White, “law is a transcription of the character of God.”

God is not right merely because he says so. God is right because there is an absolute congruence between what he requires and what he is/does. The very structure of the universe is a reflection of God. Our inescapable human sense of right and wrong is a reflection of God. God himself operates within boundaries, within limits. God must do right. Not simply in the sense that if God does it, it is right, but in the sense of that God himself is bound by the norms which he expressed in creation and which govern our best thoughts and sensibilities.

This conviction connects with multiple points of our doctrinal statements–creation, salvation and hell, judgment, the nature of humanity, the Bible. It distinguishes us from the theology of the reformation. Martin Luther embraced a philosophical view called Nominalism. The effect of this theology was to reduce human questions about divine justice to irrelevance. If God called something right, it was right just because God said so. There was no objective, universal criteria by which the Creator could be evaluated. Adventists, on the other hand, have insisted that human questions matter. Every human question about justice and fairness will be dealt with before history is finished and we enter the eternity of bliss. Law may be a divine creation, but having created it, God himself is defined in part by law and will not violate it.


Escaping the Tyranny of Law

As I entered my teen years, I began to try my hand occasionally at cooking. I began with really complicated things like oatmeal. I’d carefully read the directions on the oatmeal box, then carefully measure the ingredients into the kettle, adding them in just the order listed.

Other mornings, I watched Mother make oatmeal. She didn’t measure anything. She held the kettle under the faucet for a moment or two, added salt by pouring it into her hand before dumping it in. Then once the water boiled, she picked up the round Quaker Oatmeal box and poured. She stirred the oats a couple of times, sometimes added a bit more, put the lid on and a little later served breakfast.

She had much the same approach to biscuits. Dump in some flour. Dump in some sugar. Pour a bit of salt into her hand and dump that in. She did use a spoon for the baking powder, but did not use a measuring cup for the milk or oil.

Now, when I made biscuits, I got out the cook book and read the directions a dozen times. I used a knife to level off each cup of flour as I measured it. I used measuring spoons for salt and sugar and baking powder. I used a glass measuring cup for the milk and oil. Then I carefully counted the number of times I turned the dough. (Betty Crocker says to knead it fifteen times.)

As a teenager in Memphis and later a bachelor in my own apartment in Times Square, I dreamed of escaping the tyranny of the cookbook. I wished I could dump and stir like Mother. So I tried. And I threw away pots of oatmeal too salty to eat and trays of biscuits that even the dog couldn’t chew. So it was back to the recipes.

But over time, amazingly, it has happened. I can now cook oatmeal without reading the directions on the side of the box, and my kids will eat it. (Most of the time.) I can make pretty good biscuits without pulling down the cookbook. I even serve them to company.

I’ve been delivered from the tyranny of recipes.

Which is a silly thing to say. If you cook at all, you know what’s really happened: the law of teaspoons and cups has moved from the side of the oatmeal box into my head and hands. Whether I use a teaspoon or my hand to measure the salt, whether I use a measuring cup or estimate as I pour the oats from the box, edible oatmeal results from getting the proportions right.

It is certainly more convenient to have the proportions in my mind than to be a slave of the words and numbers on the side of the box. I prefer dumping and stirring to measuring. And having internalized the proportions, I’m free to innovate. I can add raisins to the oatmeal or apple slices and dates. I can make sweet biscuits for strawberry shortcake. But the only way to make good oatmeal or delicious biscuits is to approximate the proportions printed on the box or in the book.

So with life. The only way to build a good life is to approximate the laws written in the Book. Sure, slavish attention to the details of law is not the mark of a mature Christian. And the law works better as internalized principles, than as a collection of specific rules. But those who think they can make a better life by escaping the tyranny of the law will probably end up with oatmeal salty as Fritos and biscuits hard as rocks.

You will show me the path that leads to life;
your presence fills me with joy
and brings me pleasure forever. Psalm 16:11 TEV